minority, points out the possessors as the victims, rather than the illuminators, of the multitude. The patriots of France either hastened into the dangerous and gigantic error of making certain evil the means of contingent good, or were sacrificed by the mob, with whose prejudices and ferocity their unbending virtue forbade them to assimilate. Like Sampson, the people were strong-like Sampson, the people were blind. Those two massy pillars of the temple of Oppression, their Monarchy and Aristocracy, With horrible Convulsion to and fro They tugg'd, they shook-till down they came, and drew of conscience--he despotized in all the pomp of pa triotism, and masqueraded on the bloody stage of revolution, a Caligula with the cap of liberty on his head. It has been affirmed, and I believe with truth, that the system of Terrorism by suspending the struggles of contrariant factions. communicated an energy to the operations of the Republic, which had been hith | erto unknown, and without which it could not have been preserved. The system depended for its exist. ence on the general sense of its necessity, and when it had answered its end, it was soon destroyed by the same power that had given it birth-popular opinion. It must not however be disguised, that at all times, but more especially when the public feelings are wavy and tumultuous, artful demagogues may create this opinion: and they, who are inclined to tolerate evil as the means of contingent good, should reflect, that if the excesses of terrorism gave to the Republic that efficiency and repulsive force which its circumstances made necessary, they likewise afforded to the hostile courts the most powerful support, and excited that indignation and horror, which every where precipitated the subject into the designs of the ruler. Nor let it be forgotten that these excesses perpetuated the war in La Vendeé and made it more terrible, both by the accession of numerous partisans, who had filed from the persecution of Robespierre, and by inspiring the Chouans with fresh fury, and an unsubmitting spirit of revenge and desperation. The Girondists, who were the first republicans in power, were men of enlarged views and great literary attainments; but they seem to have been deficient in that vigor and daring activity, which circumstances made necessary. Men of genius are rarely either prompt in action or consistent in general conduct. Their early habits have been those of contemplative indolence; and the day-dreams, with which they have been accustomed to amuse their solitude adapt them for splendid speculation, not temperate and practicable counsels. Brissot, the leader of the Gironde party, is entitled to the character of a virtuous man, and an eloquent speaker; but he was rather a sublime visionary, than a quick-eyed politician; and his excellences equally with his faults rendered him unfit for the helm in the stormy hour of Revolution. Revolutions are sudden to the unthinking only. Robespierre, who displaced him, possessed a glowing Political disturbances happen not without their warnardor that still remembered the end, and a cool fero- ing harbingers. Strange rumblings and confused city that never either overlooked, or scrupled the noises still precede these earthquakes and hurricanes means. What that end was, is not known: that it of the moral world. The process of revolution in was a wicked one, has by no means been proved. I France has been dreadful, and should incite us to rather think, that the distant prospect, to which he examine with an anxious eye the motives and manwas travelling, appeared to him grand and beautiful; ners of those, whose conduct and opinions seem calbut that he fixed his eye on it with such intense ea- culated to forward a similar event in our own coungerness as to neglect the foulness of the road. If try. The oppositionists to "things as they are," are however his intentions were pure, his subsequent divided into many and different classes. To deline enormities yield us a melancholy proof, that it is not ate them with an unflattering accuracy may be a the character of the possessor which directs the pow-delicate, but it is a necessary task, in order that we er, but the power which shapes and depraves the character of the possessor. In Robespierre, its influence was assisted by the properties of his disposition. -Enthusiasm, even in the gentlest temper, will frequently generate sensations of an unkindly order. If we clearly perceive any one thing to be of vast and infinite importance to ourselves and all mankind, our first feelings impel us to turn with angry contempt from those who doubt and oppose it. The ardor of undisciplined benevolence seduces us into malignity: and whenever our hearts are warm, and our objects great and excellent, intolerance is the sin that does most easily beset us. But this enthusiasm in Robespierre was blended with gloom, and suspiciousness, and inordinate vanity. His dark imagination was still brooding over supposed plots against freedom-system which they reject, all the evils existing under to prevent tyranny he became a tyrant-and having realized the evils which he suspected, a wild and dreadful tyrant.-Those loud-tongued adulators, the mob, overpowered the lone whispered denunciations may enlighten, or at least beware of the misguided Whose end is private hate, not help to freedom. The majority of democrats appear to me to have attained that portion of knowledge in politics, which infidels possess in religion. I would by no means be supposed to imply, that the objections of both are equally unfounded, but that they both attribute to the it; and that both contemplating truth and justice "in the nakedness of abstraction," condemn constitutions and dispensations without having sufficiently examined the natures, circumstances and capacities of their recipients. The first class among the professed friends of liberty is composed of men, who unaccustomed to the labor of thorough investigation, and not particularly oppressed by the burthens of state, are yet impelled by their feelings to disapprove of its grosser depravities, and prepared to give an indolent vote in favor of reform. Their sensibilities unbraced by the co-operation of fixed principles, they offer no sacrifices to the divinity of active virtue. Their political opinions depend with weather-cock uncertainty on the winds of rumor, that blow from France. On the report of French victories they blaze into republicanism, at a tale of French excesses they darken into aristocrats. These dough-baked patriots are not however useless. This oscillation of political opinion will retard the day of revolution, and it will operate as a preventive to its excesses. Indecisiveness of character, though the effect of timidity, is almost always associated with benevolence. Wilder features characterize the second class. Sufficiently possessed of natural sense to despise the priest, and of natural feeling to hate the oppressor, they listen only to the inflammatory harangues of some mad-headed enthusiast, and imbibe from them poison, not food; rage, not liberty. Unillumined by philosophy, and stimulated to a lust of revenge by aggravated wrongs, they would make the altar of freedom stream with blood, while the grass grew in the desolated halls of justice. citizenship. They are prepared to join in digging up the rubbish of mouldering establishments, and stripping off the tawdry pageantry of governments. Whatever is above them they are most willing to drag down; but every proposed alteration that would elevate the ranks of our poorer brethren, they regard with suspicious jealousy, as the dreams of the visionary; as if there were any thing in the superiority of Lord to Gentleman, so mortifying in the barrier, so fatal to happiness in the consequences, as the more real distinction of master and servant, of rich man and of poor. Wherein am I made worse by my ennobled neighbor? Do the childish titles of Aristocracy detract from my domestic comforts, or prevent my intellectual acquisitions? But those institutions of society which should condemn me to the necessity of twelve hours daily toil, would make my soul a slave, and sink the rational being into the mere animal. It is a mockery of our fellow-creatures' wrongs to call them equal in rights, when by the bitter compulsion of their wants we make them inferior to us in all that can soften the heart, or dignify the understanding. Let us not say that this is the work of time-that it is impracticable at present, unless wo each in our individual capacities do strenuously and perseveringly endeavor to diffuse among our domestics those comforts and that illumination which far beyond all political ordinances are the true equalizers of men. We turn with pleasure to the contemplation of that small but glorious band, whom we may truly distin We contemplate those principles with horror. Yet they possess a kind of wild justice well calculated to spread them among the grossly ignorant. To unen-guish by the name of thinking and disinterested palightened minds, there are terrible charms in the idea of retribution, however savagely it be inculcated. The groans of the oppressors make fearful yet pleasant music to the ear of him, whose mind is darkness, and into whose soul the iron has entered. This class, at present, is comparatively small-Yet soon to form an overwhelming majority, unless great and immediate efforts are used to lessen the intolerable grievances of our poor brethren, and infuse into their sorely wounded hearts the healing qualities of knowledge. For can we wonder that men should want humanity, who want all the circumstances of life that humanize? Can we wonder that with the ignorance of brutes they should unite their ferocity? Peace and comfort be with these! But let us shudder to hear from men of dissimilar opportunities sentiments of similar revengefulness. The purifying alchemy of education may transmute the fierceness of an ignorant man into virtuous energy-but what remedy shall we apply to him, whom plenty has not softened, whom knowledge has not taught benevolence? This is one among the many fatal effects which result from the want of fixed principles. There is a third class among the friends of freedom, who possess not the wavering character of the first description, nor the ferocity last delineated. They pursue the interests of freedom steadily, but with narrow and self-centering views: they anticipate with exultation the abolition of privileged orders, and of acts that persecute by exclusion from the right of triots. These are the men who have encouraged the sympathetic passions till they have become irresisti ble habits, and made their duty a necessary part of their self-interest, by the long-continued cultivation of that moral taste which derives our most exquisite pleasures from the contemplation of possible perfe tion, and proportionate pain from the perception of existing depravation. Accustomed to regard all the affairs of man as a process, they never hurry and they never pause. Theirs is not that twilight of political knowledge which gives us just light enough to place one foot before the other; as they advance the scene still opens upon them, and they press right onward with a vast and various landscape of existence around them. Calmness and energy mark all their actions. Con vinced that vice originates not in the man, but in the surrounding circumstances; not in the heart, but in the understanding; he is hopeless concerning no one to correct a vice or generate a virtuous conduct he pollutes not his hands with the scourge of coercion; but by endeavoring to alter the circumstances would remove, or by strengthening the intellect, disarms the temptation. The unhappy children of vice and folly, whose tempers are adverse to their own happiness as well as to the happiness of others, will at times awaken a natural pang; but he looks forward with gladdened heart to that glorious period when justice shall have established the universal fraternity of love These soul-ennobling views bestow the virtues which they anticipate. He whose mind is habitually im prest with them soars above the present state of hu- -would the forms He meant, he made us to behold and love That the general illumination should precede revolution, is a truth as obvious, as that the vessel should be cleansed before we fill it with a pure liquor. But the mode of diffusing it is not discoverable with equal facility. We certainly should never attempt to make proselytes by appeals to the selfish feelings-and consequently, should plead for the oppressed, not to them. The author of an essay on political justice considers private societies as the sphere of real utility -that (each one illuminating those immediately beneath him,) truth, by a gradual descent, may at last reach the lowest order. But this is rather plausible than just or practicable. Society as at present constituted does not resemble a chain that ascends in a continuity of links. Alas! between the parlour and the kitchen, the tap and the coffee-room-there is a gulf that may not be passed. He would appear to me to have adopted the best as well as the most benevolent mode of diffusing truth, who uniting the zeal of the Methodist with the views of the Philosopher, should be personally among the poor, and teach them their duties in order that he may render them susceptible of their rights. insure their obedience. The situation of the poor is perilous: they are indeed both "from within and from without Unarmed to all temptations." Prudential reasonings will in general be powerless with them. For the incitements of this world are weak in proportion as we are wretched The world is not my friend, nor the world's law. The world has got no law to make me rich. They too who live from hand to mouth, will most frequently become improvident. Possessing no stock of happiness they eagerly seize the gratifications of the moment, and snatch the froth from the wave as it passes by them. Nor is the desolate state of their families a restraining motive, unsoftened as they are by education, and benumbed into selfishness by the torpedo touch of extreme want. Domestic affections depend on association. We love an object if, as often as we see or recollect it, an agreeable sensation arises in our minds. But alas! how should he glow with the charities of father and husband, who gaining scarcely more than his own necessities demand, mu have been accustomed to regard his wife and chil dren, not as the soothers of finished labor, but as rivals for the insufficient meal! In a man so circumstanced the tyranny of the Present can be overpow ered only by the ten-fold mightiness of the Future. Religion will cheer his gloom with her promises, and by habituating his mind to anticipate an infinitely great Revolution hereafter, may prepare it even for the sudden reception of a less degree of amelioration in this world. But if we hope to instruct others, we should fami liarize our own minds to some fixed and determinate principles of action. The world is a vast labyrinth, in which almost every one is running a different way. A few indeed stand motionless, and not seeking to lead themselves or others out of the maze, laugh at the failures of their brethren. Yet with little reason: for more grossly than the most bewildered wanderer does he err, who never aims to go right. It is more honorable to the head, as well as to the heart, to be misled by our eagerness in the pursuit of Truth, than to be safe from blundering by contempt of it. The happiness of mankind is the end of virtue, and truth is the knowledge of the means; which he will never seriously attempt to discover, who has not habitually interested himself in the welfare of others. The searcher after truth must love and be beloved; for general benevolence is a necessary motive to constancy of pursuit; and this general benevolence is begotten and rendered permanent by social and do Yet by what means can the lower classes be made to learn their duties, and urged to practise them? The human race may perhaps possess the capability of all excellence; and truth, I doubt not, is omnipotent to a mind already disciplined for its reception; but assuredly the over-worked laborer, skulking into an ale-house, is not likely to exemplify the one, or prove the other. In that barbarous tumult of inimical interests, which the present state of society exhibits, religion appears to offer the only means universally efficient. The perfectness of future men is indeed a benevolent tenet, and may operate on a few visionaries whose studious habits supply them with employ ment, and seclude them from temptation. But a dis-mestic affections. Let us beware of that proud phitant prospect which we are never to reach, will seldom quicken our footsteps, however lovely it may appear; and a blessing, which not ourselves but posterity are destined to enjoy, will scarcely influence the actions of any-still less of the ignorant, the prejudiced, and the selfish. "Go preach the GOSPEL to the poor." By its simplicity it will meet their comprehension, by its benevolence soften their affections, by its precepts it will direct their conduct, by the vastness of its motives | losophy, which affects to inculcate philanthropy while it denounces every home-born feeling by which it is produced and nurtured. The paternal and filial du ties discipline the heart and prepare it for the love of all mankind. The intensity of private attachments encourages, not prevents, universal Benevolence. The nearer we approach to the sun, the more intense his heat: yet what corner of the system does he not cheer and vivify? The man who would find Truth, must likewise brother of Anger and Hatred. The temple of Despotism, like that of Tescalipoca, the Mexican deity, is built of human skulls, and cemented with human blood;-let us beware that we be not transported into revenge while we are levelling the loathsome pile; lest when we erect the edifice of Freedom we but vary the style of architecture, not change the materials. Let us not wantonly offend even the preju dices of our weaker brethren, nor by ill-timed and vehement declarations of opinion excite in them malignant feelings towards us. The energies of mind are wasted in these intemperate effusions. Those materials of projectile force, which now carelessly scattered explode with an offensive and useless noise, seek it with an humble and simple heart, otherwise he will be precipitant and overlook it; or he will be prejudiced, and refuse to see it. To emancipate itself from the tyranny of association, is the most arduous effort of the mind, particularly in religious and political disquisitions. The asserters of the system have associated with it the preservation of order and public virtue; the oppugner of imposture and wars and rapine. Hence, when they dispute, each trembles at the consequences of the other's opinions instead of attending to his train of arguments. Of this however we may be certain, whether we be Christians or Infidels, Aristocrats or Republicans, that our minds are in a state unsusceptible of Knowledge, when we feel an eagerness to detect the falsehood of an adversa-directed by wisdom and union might heave rocks ry's reasonings, not a sincere wish to discover if there be Truth in them;-when we examine an argument in order that we may answer it, instead of answering because we have examined it. Our opponents are chiefly successful in confuting the Theory of Freedom by the practices of its advocates: from our lives they draw the most forcible arguments against our doctrines. Nor have they adopted an unfair mode of reasoning. In a science the evidence suffers neither diminution or increase from the actions of its professors; but the comparative wisdom of political systems depends necessarily on the manner and capacities of the recipients. Why should all things be thrown into confusion to acquire that liberty which a faction of sensualists and gamblers will neither be able or willing to preserve? A system of fundamental Reform will scarcely be effected by massacres mechanized into Revolution. We cannot therefore inculcate on the minds of each other too often or with too great earnestness the necessity of cultivating benevolent affections. We should be cautious how we indulge the feelings even of virtuous indignation. Indignation is the handsome ! from their base,-or perhaps (dismissing the metaphor) might produce the desired effect without the convulsion. For this "subdued sobriety" of temper, a practical faith in the doctrine of philosophical necessity seems the only preparative. That vice is the effect of error and the offspring of surrounding circumstances, the object therefore of condolence not of anger, is a proposition easily understood, and as easily demonstrated. But to make it spread from the understanding to the affections, to call it into action, not only in the great exertions of patriotism, but in the daily and hourly occurrences of social life, requires the most watchful attentions of the most energetic mind. It is not enough that we have once swallowed these truthswe must feed on them, as insects on a leaf, till the whole heart be colored by their qualities, and show its food in every, the minutest fibre. Finally; in the words of the Apostle, Watch ye! Stand fast in the principles of which ye have been convinced: Quit yourselves like men! Be strong! Yet let all things be done in the spirit of love. 479 The Second Landing Place: OR ESSAYS INTERPOSED FOR AMUSEMENT, RETROSPECT, AND PREPARATION, MISCELLANY THE SECOND. Etiam a musis si quando animum paulisper abducamus, apud Musas nihilominus feriamur: at reclines quidem, at otiosas, at de his et illis inter se libere colloquentes. ESSAY I. It were a wantonness and would demand But we have known that there is often found WORDSWORTH. MSS. I KNOW not how I can better commence my second LANDING PLACE, as joining on to the section of Politics, than by the following proof of the severe miseries which misgovernment may occasion in a country nominally free. In the homely ballad of the THREE GRAVES (published in my SIBYLLINE LEAVES) I have attempted to exemplify the effect, which one painful idea vividly impressed on the mind under unusual circumstances, might have in producing an alienation of the understanding; and in the parts hitherto published, I have endeavored to trace the progress to madness, step by step. But though the main incidents are facts, the detail of the circumstances is of my own invention: that is, not what I knew, but what I conceived likely to have been the case, or at least equivalent to it. In the tale that follows, I present an instance of the same causes acting upon the mind to the production of conduct as wild as that of madness, but without any positive or permanent loss of the Reason or the Understanding: and this in a real occurrence, real in all its parts and particulars. But in truth this tale overflows with a human interest, and needs no philosophical deduction to make it impressive. The account was published in the city in which the event took place, and in the same year I read it, when I was in Germany, and the impression made on my memory was so deep, that though I relate it in my own language, and with my own feel ings, and in reliance on the fidelity of my recollection, I dare vouch for the accuracy of the narration in all important particulars. The imperial free towns of Germany are, with only two or three exceptions, enviably distinguished by the virtuous and primitive manners of the citizens, and by the parental character of their several govern. ments. As exceptions, however, we must mention Aix la Chapelle, poisoned by French manners, and the concourse of gamesters and sharpers; and Noremberg, whose industrious and honest inhabitants deserve a better fate than to have their lives and properties under the guardianship of a wolfish and merciless oligarchy, proud from ignorance, and remaining ignorant through pride. It is from the small States of Germany, that our writers on political econ omy might draw their most forcible instances of actually oppressive, and even mortal taxation, and gain the clearest insight into the causes and circumstances of the injury. One other remark, and I proceed to the story. I well remember, that the event I am about to narrate, called forth, in several of the German periodical publications, the most passionate (and in more than one instance, blasphemous) declamations, concerning the incomprehensibility of the moral government of the world, and the seeming injustice and cruelty of the dispensations of Providence. But, assuredly, every one of my readers, however deeply he may sympathize with the poor sufferers, will at once answer all such declamations by the simple reflection, that no one of these awful events could possibly have taken place under a wise police and humane government, and that men have no right to complain of Providence for evils which they themselves are competent to remedy by mere common sense, joined with mere common humanity. MARIA ELEONORA SCHONING was the daughter of a Nuremberg wire-drawer. She received her unhappy existence at the price of her mother's life, and at the age of seventeen she followed, as the sole mourner, the bier of her remaining parent. From her thirteenth year she had passed her life at her father's sick-bed, the gont having deprived him of the use of his limbs: and beheld the arch of heaven only when she went to fetch food or medicines. The discharge of her filial duties occupied the whole of her time and all her thoughts. She was his only nurse, and for the last two years they lived without a servant. She prepared his scanty meal, she bathed his |